Let me guess. Does your bar prep regimen look something like this?
- Listening to lectures while sitting still like a statue
- Pausing to take notes and fill in the blanks (doubling the time it takes to finish the lectures)
- Reading giant outlines (and rereading paragraphs)
Eventually falling asleep with the lights on.
It’s like you’re experiencing the most annoying part about traveling—sitting for hours staring at a tiny screen next to someone who takes up the armrest even though they got the window seat.
And repeating this every day. Is this what Limbo is like?
(Do not invite me to “go travel”)
Words and days pass by you. You’re drained and demoralized because you’re trying to “study” but aren’t feeling a sense of progress.
Why are you trying to do this the hard way?
Consuming is more tiring than doing
Do you want to overexert yourself, or do you want an easier way to get the scores you want?
Trying to hold abstract ideas in your head is more difficult and less effective than turning them into practical insights.
How do you do that? Struggle through practice questions and learn from model answers to mold abstract information into concrete understanding.
Bonus: You remember ideas better when used in context (aka example questions).
Your body is better at learning by example. Clarity comes from DOING.
That’s why being “familiar” with a rule doesn’t help. That’s why you don’t remember 99% of what you consume passively. Vibes-based knowledge is quickly forgotten.
It feels comfortable and easy at first! The insidious part is that you feel like you need to do MORE of it when it stops feeling productive.
But remember that we don’t get scored on how well we watch videos and read books. We get graded on how correctly we answer questions.
The reason why we don’t actually emphasis practice and feedback is that it initially bruises our ego. But not passing hurts more than struggling now and the way you win more is to lose more.
DOING is LESS exhausting than THINKING about doing it. Like going to the gym, it’s worth it once we push through that initial resistance. Be a producer, not a consumer.
Eat and then digest
Studying and learning are not the same.
To be clear, the issue is NOT that you’re studying outlines and getting a structured introduction to the material from lectures. When you’re hungry, you gotta eat.
The issue is when ALL you do is eat. You stuff yourself with lectures and outlines (study) but don’t bother to digest what you consumed (learn and retain). You pile up bricks without building anything through exercise questions.
Instead: Eat and then digest.
I’m not here to shame you. It’s pretty common to do what you’re “supposed to” at first and then switch to a more conscious and effective approach. In fact, a lot of repeaters end up passing when they switch away from the traditional approach.
(This is why I believe repeaters actually have a better chance of passing:
They’re not starting from scratch. They’re starting from experience.
I’ve seen way too many successful repeaters to think that there’s some inherent disadvantage of being a repeater or taking the exam in February.)
Once we get over the FOMO from lectures and trying to review everything “just in case,” we realize that the way to gain the skill to write passing essays and answer MBE questions is quite simple:
You attempt to solve a question. You get things wrong. You figure out what you did right or wrong. You realize what to do differently next time based on your errors.
The most effective way to learn is from trial and error.
Treat yourself like some kind of artificial intelligence. This is how machine learning works.
Simple, right?
Actually, you already know what to do. The problem is that you don’t trust yourself enough to do it.
And there’s a lot of bloat and distraction out there.
Reduce the noise and focus on what’s important
Should you collect a pile of study resources (you can’t even pick from)? Ask for everyone’s study schedules? Join every study group?
It’s exciting when you sign up for a new course or get a new tool—until it becomes overwhelming.
Sometimes, organizing the tools becomes more of a task than the actual work.
We want a higher signal-to-noise ratio and lower bloat. Sometimes you do have to try different things to know what works well for you.
What is the right thing for you? It’s one that helps you understand and retain the material and answer questions correctly.
As you find out what works for you, be discerning about how you allocate your limited time and energy and what introduces noise in your study system.
It’s not just about time. You actually have a lot of time to prepare (and your time can be bought back).
It’s our mental energy that becomes a bottleneck. When you’re exhausted, you can’t do anything even if you have the time.
What are some ways to focus on what’s important?
1) Know highly tested topics
Did you know that there are three areas on the MBE that are tested the most?
- Negligence (50% of all Torts questions)
- Individual rights under 1st, 5th, 14th Amendments (50% of all Con Law questions)
- Constitutional protection of accused persons (50% of all Crim Pro questions)
The NCBE tells us that there WILL be 12-13 questions for EACH of these areas. That’s a whopping 50% for the subject (25 questions) and 36-39 questions over the entire MBE.
I break down all the subtopics here. (Magicsheets and Passer’s Playbook come with a spreadsheet that tells you the exact breakdowns.)
If you master these big topics that are always tested without fail, there’s a better chance of scoring high on the MBE. You get the most bang for your effort if you make sure you have these areas down (as well as other areas of course).
Doing the opposite is harder.
2) Active learning (vs. passive learning)
Issues and rules are not born equal. You’ll see certain issues and rules pop up more often than others. Those are the important ones to know because it’s likely that they’ll come up again.
But it’s not just about having this knowledge (or knowledge about which MBE topics you’ll see). You have to live and experience it yourself.
The past will guide your future.
Wrestling with past exam questions (and model answers and explanations) will show you what’s most important and how to solve it.
Getting those “aha” moments is more fun than memorizing abstract ideas. If all you did was memorize some rule as a fact, your body has no clue what it needs to do.
That “click” moment is so important to bar exam takers.
“Stop standing there, and give it a try. Techniques that are only shown to you are completely useless. It’s only when you experience them yourself that you can learn how to use and execute them effectively.”
3) Find the sweet spot in the tools you use
Maybe you don’t need another cup of coffee. Maybe you just need water and sleep.
Maybe you don’t need a bunch of different outlines or crazy schedules or other shiny objects. Maybe you just need 1 or 2 go-to references.
You don’t need to go empty handed and be a lone wolf either. Again, be discerning.
The resources out there can all be useful in their own ways. But it’s most effective to be the best student than to seek the perfect tutor, course, or outline.
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